L is for Los Angeles
by Dragon's Daughter 1980
Summary: 3.8 Million Residents. 498.3 Square Miles. Ten People. One City.


**L is for Los Angeles**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

(Written for the 2008 Summer Alphabet Challenge)

Disclaimer: Other than being a devoted fan, I have nothing to do with Numb3rs.

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El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula

The City of Angels, of hopes and dreams, of glamour and fame…

Like any other metropolitan area, its populace is in constant flux and flow, like a raging river plunging recklessly over rocks and branches in its way downstream to the oceans. Visitors come, to gawk at the sights, to soak in the glamour of the Hollywood lights. Families come, to enjoy the rides at Disneyland, to make fond memories from hot days under the sun. Teenagers come, to pursue their dreams— in academics, on the big screen, or to just make it big, somehow. Business managers come, to strike deals, to earn a respectable living in society. Workers come, to find jobs, to make a livelihood even as they dream of bigger and better things. Then there are those who come, simply because they are drawn to the city, for reasons of family and friends, of love and home. People come to the City of Angeles, to change its heartbeat, to alter the vibrant canvas of the city's life and history.

Yet whether it is for the briefest of visits or the longest of stays, no one remains unchanged by their experiences under the hot Californian sun. Just as they leave their footprints on the pavement of Los Angeles, so the city leaves an indelible mark on all who pass through. Sometimes it is the visible tan (or if one should forget the sunscreen, sunburned skin) of a visitor. Other times…

When she first came to Los Angeles, Megan Reeves was just doing her job. It was supposed to be just another field office assignment in a career spread across different states and cities. She was a Special Agent, heart and soul. It didn't matter what family she was born into, what institutions she graduated from—she was with the best of the best, and that was all that mattered.

She hadn't counted on finding an adoptive family after all these years of wandering through life by herself, getting by with the loosest of ties to her blood family. She hadn't counted on feeling like she was _home_ every time she sat down at her boss' childhood home for a lively conversation around a home-cooked meal. She hadn't counted on building a life for herself, outside of her career, where she could laugh and smile and have joyful moments that were shared with people she cared deeply about, and who returned that affection. She most certainly hadn't counted on falling in love.

_Especially_ with a quirky Physics professor by the name of Lawrence Fleinhardt.

But she did.

And she never regretted a moment of it.

Yet, in the city of change, she found herself redefined as well. A career choice questioned until all answers were clear to her, she choose to leave the City of Angels behind her, to soak in new locales and to live new experiences. While she knew she would not regret leaving, she also knew she would return one day, bound irrevocably as she was to the family and man she had fallen in love with. So it was not truly a farewell she bid to the city and its inhabitants, but a temporary adieu. She would stroll along its streets once again with her lover soon enough.

Some people leave the city with the intent of never returning, putting down old memories they want to forget into the dustiest corners of their minds, only to return because they cannot imagine their lives without Los Angeles' constant ebb and flow of people, of cultures, of energy. Charles Eppes put aside his childhood memories to pursue his dreams and genius, wandering the world to soak up all it had to offer intellectually (and socially, to some extent) for a remarkable, talented mind. He grew wise in the verses of mathematics, gathered accolades from prestigious institutions and earned the rivalry and cooperation of the brightest mentors of his world. Yet for all his travels, he choose to settle close to his roots, making the unconscious decision to put his family above all else in his life.

The decision was aided enormously by the fact that the Californian Institute of Science was in his quiet hometown, a renowned establishment that had been ecstatic at the mere thought of having a mathematician of his caliber on their faculty. It helped that a few months later, another popular name in academic circles — that of a physicist, and his academic mentor — wandered onto the permanent faculty of the institution as well. His parents didn't mind his continued residence at their family home, and he frankly had no intentions of changing the situation. Too much had changed already with his brother's departure from the house, and he didn't want to add to the fuss and worry. He lived in a separate world from his brother, and while a part of him accepted it, another wondered if it had to be this way—two brothers who walked two different paths—and if would ever change.

Other times, the incessant pulse of life is overwhelming, and only reasons of duty or family, sometimes both, draw people back or persuade them to stay. Don Eppes left in search of himself elsewhere, at first running from his past, only to embrace it later. He walked back into the shadows of Los Angeles' skyscrapers because of duty and family, under the shadow of grief and loss. He returned because he was his parents' son, and he saw no other acceptable choices available to him. He stayed to care for his family, to steer them onto normalcy after his mother's death, even as he let himself slip from his own concern. He encouraged his father back to routine and daily life. He ignored the tension between his brother and himself, even though resentment lurked in the background as they embarked on a decidedly unconventional method of crime-solving. All in all, he didn't expect their paths to cross the ways they did, for the two of them—mathematician and agent — to become the brothers in adulthood they never expected to be in childhood. Yet perhaps his surprise came from the knowledge he had ignored for so long, that his little brother—socially awkward, genius, nerd, gifted—was just as human as he was, with the same goals and struggles in life (and the same father hinting for grandchildren). They were both searching for the same things — love, honor, family, duty, success, legacy — in life, and that quest would always bring them together, regardless of circumstances, to their love for each other as brothers.

People are counseled to never expect love in large cities. For despite the vast populace that lives in close quarters with each other, the individual can be more alone in the most active metropolis than in the most desolate places in the world. Love is found in human connections, and in large cities, those connections can easily be all too fleeting. Robin Brooks knew this fact well. She lived and breathed her career without many regrets; she had chosen her profession without hesitation and with full commitment. Her life was case after case, trial after trial, but she went to bed at night knowing that she had won more than she had lost. At least, professionally. Her personal life wasn't much to speak of, beyond the random girls' night out or the occasional escape to the mountains, and a few other outlets here and there. Romance, as her parents' marriage evidenced, was the equivalent of playing with fire, and she had very little interest in being burnt.

Human connections could tie an individual to a place or person, long after the obligation had soured and curded into a burden. They could make a person weak, vulnerable to pressure or threats. They could make a person stubborn, insensible to risks and harm. She knew, firsthand in the courtroom, how human connections could both be fragile and sturdy in the same breath. The touch of a hand, the tears of a wife, the glance of a son, the smirk of a daughter—all those gestures testified to the knowledge that emotions were risky, a gamble on the dice.

Since Los Angeles wasn't Las Vegas, she wasn't interested in taking chances. Short relationships, long enough to satisfy her human needs, short enough to placate the inner witness of a hostile marriage, were her plea bargains with herself. If he was interested, she was interested, and neither of them interested in commitment, then there was nothing wrong with a few dates and overnight stays. When it was over, it was over, and they both moved on, to other places, and other people. It wasn't that she didn't care, but she made it a point never to dwell on what couldn't be changed or speculate on 'what-ifs.' That was the path to insanity.

Though, she discovered, perhaps the path to insanity took another form, as that of a charming, devastatingly handsome special agent. He was smart and agile, a man with a reputation of a serial monogynist who was wedded to his work, but clearly interested in her. She didn't bother to hide her own interest either. He was willing and available; so was she. What was the harm in letting a gentleman take her out for a few meals and bringing him home a few times? What she didn't foresee was how he intrigued her, never mind how he made his way into her heart. He was a complicated man, and while a part of her didn't mind that at all, her internal alarms began to drown out her natural instincts. Too much too fast, and she was gone like the Santa Ana winds sweeping across the Santa Susana range.

Yet she found herself unable to rid him from her mind. Men flirted with her, offered a simpler relationship than he had on table, but she could not disbar him from her thoughts. He had breached her defenses when she wasn't looking, maneuvered her into a checkmate she couldn't escape from, and far from panicking from that knowledge, she missed him. Among other things, she missed the warmth he offered, his understanding that came from working the system, and the completely insane mushy musing that he would be a wonderful father, if the time ever came. So when the chance came to return to the city of Angels, she seized it without hesitation and never looked back.

Everyone brings with them their own shadows, their own baggage. Colby Granger was no exception. Los Angeles was the next stop in a life full of 'next stops.' It was a life of preoccupation, of stalking the trail of a traitor without seeming to, hiding in the shadows and darkness. He held secrets that could kill with a mistake, existed in a world where an innocent slip exacted a heavy price in blood. His life was hopelessly tangled in a chess match where the stakes were not only national security, but also his personal integrity (and his own life, but he tried not to think too much about that).

The blur of his days and nights, working with the Bureau under the bright Californian sunshine and chasing ghosts in the dark twists and turns of international counterespionage, blinded him to the fatal mistake he had made. His badge was supposed to be an excuse; his team was just a cover. Yes, they were good agents, good people that he could count on, but he wasn't supposed count on them. They were safe; they were loyal. That was all they were supposed to be. He was supposed to be able to walk away from them without a thought or hesitation.

He wasn't supposed to wonder if Megan could take care of herself (he knew she could and would…but still). He wasn't supposed to worry that Don would beat himself up over all of this deception. He wasn't supposed to feel sick every time he thought about David and what would happen when the situation unraveled.

He wasn't supposed to care.

At the eleventh hour, he forced himself to stop and think, to reassess the motivations that had gotten him this far (alive) down the dark and treacherous path he was on, and to acknowledge all of what he was risking in this dicey, idiotic and foolhardy plan. A family, with all its ties and bonds, wasn't supposed to be in the cards. David, Megan and Don were supposed to be his cover. They weren't supposed to become his safety net, his sanity and his weakness. David wasn't supposed to know so much about him; Megan wasn't supposed to get so close; Don wasn't supposed to come after him. But that wasn't the case, and they did, and he found himself thanking God that his team was _his_ team.

After all the dust had settled, he thought about leaving this bustling city of impermanence behind him. Put to rest the constant uncertainty and fear by moving on to another city, another life, but he found he couldn't put pen to paper to ask for a transfer. If anything, what he wanted most was what he already had: a team that was like family.

Unlike many who drifted aimlessly in and out of Los Angeles, he chose to put down his roots in the city because it was where he was the happiest, surrounded by people he didn't hesitate to trust and care for.

Not all who come and go from the city of chance depart of their own choosing, or remain away of their own will. Ian Edgerton belonged to neither and both. On one hand, one might say that he was born to be a predator of predators. He was a hunter of criminals, a tracker in the oldest sense of the word. He knew how to read the signs left in the dirt and sand, to lure and snare even the wiliest of crooks with cold steel and metal. He went where his trade led him, and wandered where he needed to. He had no 'home,' other than the blue sky above him and the fertile earth beneath him. He was a wanderer, like his father, and his father's fathers.

Yet, Los Angeles was a peculiar place, primarily due to the people who inhabited the place. There were times when he pondered (briefly, on long nights in the darkness, watching and waiting) on settling down in the city of angels if he ever had an urge to quit his vocation. It was a warm and welcoming place, with people who cared deeply for each other, and offered quite a variety of events to keep life interesting. Then he would inwardly snort with amusement — anywhere that the Eppes brothers were together would be highly entertaining, if not educational and bemusing as well.

Claudia Gomez missed the laughter of shared meals in the warm Californian sunshine, the nights of watching bad movies while cuddling, the office dinners when they both worked too late to eat a proper supper. She had left all of that because of family, because of duty, but she longed to return to the place she had made into home. Maria had asked for help, and because her baby twin sister had asked, she couldn't find it within herself to say no. Serial murderers were both dangerous and rare, and there was nothing she wouldn't do to make sure that her sister made it through the case, alive and in one piece. It was risky, doing what she was, but it was family and it was duty.

Still, she longed for the day when the all-clear signal would come from her superiors, and she could find herself in the familiar streets and alleys of her home again. She knew that as soon as her flight touched tarmac, she would make her way to a house in Little Venice, whip up a nice meal and wait up for a certain person to come home.

All metropolitan areas have the upscale, chic streets of carefully groomed houses, and the tough, gritty neighborhoods of people just trying to get by in any way they can. There were days when David Sinclair wasn't all too sure he had managed to leave the old haunts behind him. He had worked hard to get out of the Bronx, to graduate from Cornell, and to embark on a career he was proud of.

It took a case file on his desk to make him realize that he might be running away from his past, instead of acknowledging the struggles he went through to get where he was today. It took another man's death for him to step up to the plate, and stop the same storylines that he had seen played out around him for far too long.

There were moments when he wondered if his life was on repeat: same crime, different faces; same places, different streets; same betrayal, different names. He wondered why he stayed, why he didn't go into the bullpen one day and put pen to paper to ask for a transfer out. Sometimes the work felt pointless — take one kingpin down, and ten more took to the streets. Other days, with a child's shy smile or a parent's relieved tears, he knew why he made the choices he did. And then there was Claudia… a woman who knew what it was like to run from home, yet never leave it completely behind.

There was the family he never expected to find when he stepped onto the humid air of Los Angeles — slightly quirky, if not completely off the wall at times, but always loving and open. Their laughter and care eased burdens of living away from his closely-knit family who had steadfastly supported him through childhood. There were the experiences that challenged his belief in justice and altered the ways he saw the world. Reality was harsh at times, but it only strengthened his resolve to adhere to the law, to strive for the ideal. Then there was the woman he never expected to fall in love with, a sassy medical examiner who knew the value of family and laughter, of silence and touch. She was the one who showed him that achievement didn't mean forgetting the people back home, that success didn't mean hiding his roots. His struggles and triumphs were testimonies to his strength and character, traits he should be proud of.

Pride was a character trait that Lawrence Fleinhardt, Professor of Physics, was taught as a child to never indulge in. His father had expected him to become a painter, but had been disappointed at the aesthetically-deprived canvases he had produced. So the intricacies of electrons and molecules, of black holes and stars, of space and time became the paints that he wielded to find perfection and happiness. His family dissolved into the past, into memories held in silence, and puzzlement over the fickleness and complexities of human nature. For many years, he too wandered the globe, the ever curious (if absent-minded) student until his path crossed with a young man, a boy really, under the airy eaves of Princeton. Their minds were engaged, the pairing of mentor and student ideal — a genius to challenge a genius, a man to guide a boy into adulthood and prestige. They became colleagues, friends, collaborators and pranksters.

So when the young man went home to Los Angeles, and a few months later, extended an offer on behalf of his current employer, the older man found himself intrigued. While Princeton, like all other Ivy Leagues, was a top-notch institution, it was still an establishment that offered a liberal education, with a budget that was stretched across a variety of disciplines. He would never forget the growth and discoveries he had accomplished at the fine university, but he decided that perhaps it would be better for someone of his caliber to move onto another institution that could provide a stronger focus for his work with easy access to the delicate, expensive equipment required for his research. With that, he found himself in the city of Angels, however ironic the name might be.

Yet it was here, in this bustling metropolis of millions of souls, that he found his angel, his gravity, a brilliant and stunning woman who accepted him without reservation, who smiled for him in pride when he could not find pride within himself. She supported him, wholeheartedly, rejoicing in his triumphs and sharing in his frustrations. Theirs was a relationship of equals, a rapport that stretched between two souls, a delicate balance replicated in nature on every level of being. He was hers as she was his.

As he had learned early on, Life is unpredictable. It is capricious in its favor; it adores unveiling surprises around every corner. He came to the city because of professional considerations; never had he expected to find the family and woman of his unspoken dreams. He stayed in the city because there was nowhere else to call home, and no need to seek for one any longer. The City of Angels had given him his earthly paradise.

People come to Los Angeles, pursing dreams and realities, hoping to metamorphose into their idyllic lives. But sometimes, seeking new horizons means mending old bridges, connecting the past with the future, and understanding that sometimes, Heaven is a little closer to Earth than one might think.

Still, Los Angeles is an urban landscape, where steel towers soar to the heavens, and concrete tunnels run under the streets. As there is glitter and the limelight, there are shadows and the dangers. Residents are wise to the unsavory aspects of the city while tourists, as long as they stick to the well-defined attractions, will never run across these hazards. The naïve dreamers, though, the ones with the sweetest dreams born from innocence, who come to the city to birth their fantasies into reality, they are the ones who run the highest risks of seeing their dreams turn into fatal ashes and dust.

Beautiful and idealistic, plucky and resourceful, Felicia Madison came to Los Angeles in search of the spotlight and fame. She drank in the giddy atmosphere of glamour and celebrity, confident in her chances of bursting onto the big screen and soaring to the heights of her wildest dreams. Believing that she had planned for anything and everything her life would throw at her, she was brash and bold, reveling in the belief of the young, that nothing horrible could ever touch her.

But Los Angeles, city of chance, threw her to the canyon winds of Fate, watching her fall into nothing more than a name and a face, landing as another missing victim on the crowded desk of an FBI agent.

What was her fate?

The answer to that question, only the City of Angels knew, and it kept its silence. Her story would be revealed, in time, and only at the hands of dedicated men and women who would not settle for anything less than the whole, absolute truth.


End file.
